Not quite what they meant by ‘the seasons are changing’

A couple of Aprils ago, I remarked to an Irish friend how it was nearly May and thus nearly my birthday (what, you’re not still excited about yours?). ‘Ooh’, she said, ‘how lovely. A summer birthday’.

I did a double-take. ‘No’, I corrected, ‘a spring birthday’.

‘But May’s the first month of summer’. My pal was adamant about this; Wikipedia backs her up (though Met Eireann begs to differ).

It's spring, Jim, but not as we know it

It utterly baffled me. Quick; which season’s your birthday in? You know it as instinctively as you know your star sign, right? Years of birthday parties being weather-dependent, or too close to Christmas, or in the middle of the summer holidays, mean that your birthday season’s hardwired. This discovery was just as peculiar as the recent assertion that there’s an extra zodiac sign out there.

I was thinking about this again yesterday, admiring the bank of daffodils I’d planted more in hope than expectation when we moved into our wreck of a house in October. ‘Spring’s sprung’, I thought. And then I wondered. Has it, really? Is it spring over there in Ireland now? And if so, when did it start? Last month, when the snow still threatened? Or is it this month? And why is it different from (as far as I can tell) the rest of Europe?

Like Qaoileann and Cara, I learnt that Spring is February, March and April; the months of summer are May, June and July, while the autumnal months are August, September and October. The remaining three are winter months. In Irish, September is ‘Mean Fomhair’ – ‘Autumn’s Middle’ and October is ‘Deireadh Fomhair’ – ‘Autumn’s End’. So our native language backs this notion up.

My grandmother, however, always cautioned us to ‘Ne’er cast a clout ’till May is out’ meaning don’t remove a layer of clothing until the end of May. In her mind, May might *technically* be the beginning of summer, but she wouldn’t trust it too much.

Like Sinéad, however, I have spent far too many seasons in Ireland to believe that Irish weather will ever do anything other than exactly what it darned well pleases.

In Irish, September is ‘Mean Fomhair’ – ‘Autumn’s Middle’ and October is ‘Deireadh Fomhair’ – ‘Autumn’s End’. So our native language backs this notion up.

Yeah, I’ve always got the impression that our division of the seasons is a very old one. And it must have been more widespread in the past – it’s also supported by the equinoxes and what we in English call Midsummer is towards the end of June while Midwinter is at the same time in December after all, which doesn’t make sense if Summer starts in June and Winter in December.

It is indeed a confusing situation. I’m a May girl too and always told I was born in summer but it does only seem to be here that that’s the case.

It gets even more confusing in Italy where they say summer doesn’t start untill June the 21st or something.

Also think I do remember reading somewhere that they say the seasons have ‘slipped’ in Northern Europe somehow so that way back when February 1st may have indeed been more spring-like, thoguh I don’t know how that would work.

Think I agree with some of the comments above most; most seasons in Ireland can be filed under plain ‘Wet’.

English, and all the seasons are a month later for me than they are for Irish people. I hadn’t realised that I had such a strong sense of which months were which seasons until I encountered the Irish system and immediately thought, “but that’s so wrong!”

But in England, schools onlys have August off, so we’d have our entire summer holiday in the autumn according to Irish standards!

i think it’s something to do with the nordic countries – i only recently learned from my belgian boyfriend that ireland is one of few countries in which spring starts in february. ireland, iceland and a few other nordic countries.
the discovery came from a conversation about planning for later in the year – going away in “summer” turned out to mean two different things! he thinks summer is 21 june to 21 september! “august is totally summer” according to him.
i don’t know where the difference between ireland and the rest of europe comes from though…